TWENTY-five years ago next month the son of a Western Districts dairy farmer put his tiny local pub on the national map — and carried on a tradition that dates back to almost the start of one of the most prestigious awards in Australian sport.

It was Brownlow Medal night, 1989. Geelong centreman Paul Couch had capped off a remarkable season by pipping Hawthorn’s John Platten to win Australian football’s highest honour.

As those in the rooms at the Southern Cross Ballroom toasted his football achievement, Couch sent a special message to his family and friends who had gathered to watch the count on TV at the “Boggy Creek Pub”.

It was a little establishment which was “half a mile run downhill on a pushbike” from Couch’s parents’ dairy farm, in Curdievale, about 250km southwest of Melbourne. Couch’s brothers and sisters had cheered him on from the front bar of the pub, which was then called the Sportsman’s Arms Hotel.

“I think they all had a pretty big night.” Couch laughed this week when he recalled the night he gave a little pub the best advertisement possible.

The Greatest number sevens

One of his brothers left the pub at 2am that night, was up milking cows by 6.45am, and was back at the pub just after 9am to keep the celebrations rolling on.

Asked if the free plug a generation ago still earned him the right to free beer in the pub now officially called the Boggy Creek Hotel, Couch laughed and said: “No, that finished a long time ago. The publican was pretty tight back then.”

Couch’s Brownlow Medal win was Geelong’s first victory in the award for 27 years, since another centreman Alistair Lord won the medal in less salubrious surroundings than Couch did that night.

But a little-known fact was that Couch’s win in 1989 continued a longstanding tradition between Brownlow Medal winners and the No. 7 jumper.

Paul Couch with his 1989 Brownlow Medal.Source:News Limited

It was the 10th time — and the most recent — that the winner of the game’s highest individual award has worn that jumper.

Couch was a bush Brownlow winner, but so too was the fourth winner of the award, Syd Coventry, the first to win the medal in the No. 7 jumper.

Coventry hailed from Diamond Creek where his family ran an orchard and with his brother Gordon, who also wore No. 7 in some years due to Collingwood’s alphabetical use of numbers, he formed a massive part of the club’s ‘Machine’.

But unlike Couch, or his family celebrating at the Boggy Creek Pub, there was no such celebration of Brownlow Medal victory for Coventry in 1927. He was announced as the winner of the award in mid-September as the Magpies were in the midst of a finals series that would yield the first of four successive premierships.

Collingwood's Gordon Coventry.Source:News Limited

Yet Coventry was not presented with the medal until early the following year.

The next winner of the Brownlow Medal in the No. 7 jumper would have to wait considerably longer — almost 60 years — to get his hands on what was rightfully his.

Coventry’s teammate, Harry Collier, tied for the award in 1930 when wearing No. 7, with Richmond’s Stan Judkins and Footscray’s Allan Hopkins. On a countback system, Judkins was judged as the winner and Collier and Hopkins had to make do without one.

To clarify. Although Harry Collier mainly wore no.1, he won Brownlow in no.7. Albert C mainly wore no.7 but won Brownlow in no.5 @superfooty

Fittingly, in the same year that Couch won his medal, in 1989, the VFL decided to retrospectively hand out Brownlow Medals to those who had “lost” on the countback system. Collier and Collingwood had led the push for those unlucky players to be recognised for years, and they were finally rewarded.

Essendon’s Bill Hutchison poses in a Victorian jumper in the garden of his Aberfeldie home in 1950.5 of 7

Bill Hutchison marks in the 1950 Grand Final.6 of 7

Collingwood’s goalkicking hero Gordon Coventry.7 of 7

Andy Collins and Gary Ayres with the 1998 premiership cup.

Ayres gets past Tigers Brendan Bower and Anthony Banik.

Fitzroy and AFL champion Haydn Bunton Sr.

Collingwood’s champion Collier brothers, Albert (left) and Harry.

Essendon’s Bill Hutchison poses in a Victorian jumper in the garden of his Aberfeldie home in 1950.

Bill Hutchison marks in the 1950 Grand Final.

Collingwood’s goalkicking hero Gordon Coventry.

1 of 7

Incredibly, five of the first 14 Brownlow Medal winners wore No. 7, firmly establishing the link between the number and the award.

No one did as much for that as Fitzroy’s Haydn Bunton, one of the greatest footballers of all-time. The kid from Albury who oozed grace, style and charisma won the award in his first season (1931), in his second (1932) and in his fifth season (1935).

As Fitzroy declared at the time, “Never was a trophy more worthily won.” Bunton said that “it is an honour that every player aspires to”.

The Fitzroy footballer who won the medal in 1933, Wilfred “Chicken” Smallhorn (in No. 21), said of his teammate: “I would describe Bunton as a freak and I think he may be a little psychic.

Fitzroy footballer Haydn Bunton Sr. in 1936.Source:News Limited

He was a handball specialist; he had a magnificent stride — he never seemed to be running fast; he used his arms well and when running to the ball, he wouldn’t run to it and bend down, he would be bending as he ran and one hand would come out and he would just pluck it in.”

Bunton, who died in a car accident in 1955, aged only 44, would have a link to Fitzroy’s 1950 Brownlow Medal winner, Allan Ruthven. The club rated Ruthven so highly that after wearing No. 14 and No. 30 in his first four seasons, that they gave him Bunton’s fabled No.7.

And in his sixth season in Bunton’s old number, Ruthven won the Brownlow Medal by three votes.

Five more number 7s.Source:Herald Sun

The man who finished sixth to Ruthven that season, Essendon’s Bill Hutchison, would make his own contribution two and three years later.

The brilliant Bomber won the 1953 Brownlow Medal in the No. 7 jumper, having “lost” on a countback with Richmond’s Roy Wright a year earlier. That 1952 medal would be awarded posthumously almost 40 years later.

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